Core Apps Update: Calculator

This is my third Core Apps update, you can go back and read about the Clock and Calendar apps if you missed them. Today I’m going to show off the Calculator app.

Calculator Features

Basic Functions

The Calculator does exactly what you would expect a calculator to do. It’s a four-function calculator and does it’s job perfectly well. But it has a few unique features that make it so much more useful. Using the old paper-roll calculators as inspiration, the calculator lets you label the numbers in your calculation, so you can go back and see “7 what?”. When you’re done with a calculation, instead of clearing it off, you simply drag upwards to “tear off” that individual calculation.

Calculation History

Just because you’ve torn off a calculation, doesn’t mean you’ve thrown it away. Instead, your calculation is stored in a browseable history. This makes the labels even more useful, because you can go back hours, days, even months to an old bit of calculating. You can even tap on any number in any of those calculations to insert it into your current one. If you really are done with a calculation, you can swipe it to the right or left to delete it from your history.

Visual Designs

The Design team says we’ll have visual designs for the Calculator later this week, so the developers will be able to start on implementing those. Keep an eye on the design team blog and Google+ to see them when they come out.

Release Schedule

The release schedule for the Calculator is the same as the Clock. It’s already well past what would be considered an Alpha release, so we just called May for that milestone. Going forward, we plan on delivering a Beta in July that includes the visual designs, followed by a final release in August.

5 Responses to Core Apps Update: Calculator

Nice work, It’s always nice to see extra functionality. One thing confuses me though: Why is swiping deletion done from the right when it’s done from the left in the system indicators? It seems inconsistant and confusing to use the right side, did the design team specificy that it should be done in this way?